


I'll fake it through the day

by Siren_whispers



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-23 07:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18149135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siren_whispers/pseuds/Siren_whispers
Summary: Isak could keep it hidden, pretend he was soneone else, pretend he was who he knew people wanted him to be.  He could pretend that he was who he wanted him to be.  Or at least he could until Even Bech Næsheim appeared and his philosophy shattered.Title is from Elliott Smith's Miss Misery.





	I'll fake it through the day

Isak would try to deny it to himself, try to tell himself that the feeling he felt in his stomach when he saw a man so beautiful he didn't have the words to articulate quite what he was seeing was just an aesthetic appreciation.  It didn't mean anything.

_It can't mean anything._

He'd gotten so used to the internal chanting as it span around his head, dipping, weaving and shouting at him whenever it seemed he was about to forget it was there that he didn't know how to live without it.  But there were moments when he had to.

Moments when he had to let go of _it can't mean anything_ and replace it with _it can't become anything_ .  And then he would quickly don the mask of _it can't mean anything_ and he would be Isak again.  He would be that face that people recognised, the hair he chose never to deal with, the eyes that smiled and laughed like they were meant to if you didn't look close enough, the whip-like tongue that spat words so caustic he sometimes wondered what inside of him was conjuring them, the pretty girl on his arm attracted to his indifference.

All of those girls, the ones that lasted and the ones that didn't, melted under his fingertips and as he grasped at water that slipped away he knew he needed something different but _it can't  mean anything._  Their names washed away like the water they became, washed down with alcohol and weed and whatever else he could sink into to forget what he was and what he wasn't.

 

But then a storm, gangly and blonde and squinting at everything with those smiling eyes that made _it can't mean anything_ crumble a little more with every glance, rushed into his life.  There was Emma and there was Even and one melted and one didn't, and one was in his line of sight and one stayed firmly within his mind yet there was one he wanted to drink up and manifest before him.  It wasn't Emma and he knew he should feel bad about leading her on but there was a safety in her longing looks and flirtatious smiles that gave _it can't mean anything_ a brief new life and him a shield of short hair and words that didn't sound quite right and curves at all the wrong angles in all the wrong places.

 

Even knew without Isak having to tell him and it made Isak feel transparent.  He wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but, either way, it was a big thing.  Depending on perspective, it was a door opening for him or one shutting harshly closed.

That laughing voice and those knobbly hands and gangly limbs snatched at the final wisps of the sentiment of _it can't mean anything_ and tore them into tiny shreds that burned up in bright flames that only he could see.  But he watched his friends faces as he lost his mantra and fell victim to a sudden lack of foundation and was sure the licking flames could be felt by everyone who let themself come close enough to get burned.

 

With the disappearance of _it can't mean anything_ came a revelation Isak didn't think he was ready for: somebody else knew of the disappearance and suddenly it didn't reside only in the traitorous pit of his stomach and the shame he couldn't stop, it was written on the threads of somebody else's memory.  It was like he was a puppet master manning a marionette and the strings were snapping slowly but surely and he could only lie in wait and try to keep the show going as he gradually lost all sense of control. The fact of _it means something_ being kept anywhere but his own brain was the first snap.

With Even knowing _it means something_ , Isak had lost the opportunity he once had to weave _it can't mean anything_ into a textile and drape himself so fully in it that it smothered all his senses.  With Even knowing Isak had lost the easy way out, but there were still ways out. And he liked the sound of them.

 

Or, at least, he did.  That is, until he was in a stranger's pool and his body was underwater and the smell of chlorine was making him dizzy and everything _Even_ was making him melt.  And Even wasn't melting.  Even was what Isak needed, something that stayed and caught him and existed in a solid state.

 

There were problems and bipolar and all sorts of words from Sonja that Isak couldn't let go of, an idea that Even hadn't liked him, that he had let himself lose the easy way out for nothing.  But there was also a lingering taste on his lips. There was a hum in his veins as he tried to force a fluid to hold its shape. There was a searing pain born with every lie he spat. And there was a memory implanted in his brain; a memory of kissing a boy, _of doing so much more than kissing a boy,_ and in his memories and his reality the world kept spinning and he couldn't comprehend the appeal _it can't mean anything_ had ever held.

 

He told Jonas.

He told Jonas and the birds still sung from their nests, the wind still rushed around them, the sky was still overcast, the ground underfoot was still solid, and, most importantly, Jonas, with his kind eyes and wild eyebrows and strange smile, was still Jonas.  He had destroyed _it can't mean anything_ and everything was fine.

He told Jonas and his way out, easy or not, was gone because there was nothing that was going to make him lose Jonas’ friendship, even if it meant acknowledging _it means something._

 

Jonas knew.

Isak had told told him.

It was fine.

It was fine.

Fine.

Fine

So fine.

 

In Isak’s mind he had changed everything, cast away other prospective Emma's and replaced them with the one glowing face he couldn't shift.

 

When they adopted the _minute by minute_ philosophy it was for his benefit as well as Even's.

It was stability without restriction.

It was a much better replacement for his lost philosophy, only this one wouldn't hurt him until he didn't know how to regard himself with anything but a disgusted, vague unfamiliarity, like he was never seeing himself but also never seeing anyone else.

 _Minute by minute_ meant now, the present, _it can't mean anything_ had meant a hypothetical future and a fake smile and a hand he couldn’t make fit in his own.

 

It had started with Even but it was Jonas that took the path towards the exit and trampled it because one Isak told him, there was no going back.  Once he told Jonas who he was there was no more indifference he didn't need to feign or feelings he had to fake.

 

He shed it like a snake's skin: the motto of _it can't mean anything._

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second thing I've written for Skam and is very similar in nature to the first which definitely isn't because I switch the pronouns and then dump my feelings and issues on the already troubled Isak. I'm tired, it's late, and I just hope this is actually coherent enough to mean something.


End file.
